Who should decide who's fit to publish? Government? Politicians?

We're never more than a step or two from tyranny. And the inclination to be tyrannical is buried not so deep beneath the surface even in the best of us. Who hasn't longed to shut someone else up because the other's message is so, take your pick, offensive, stupid, wrong, different, harmful, or even, correct?

There's much that's wrong with journalism, and we spend a good bit of our day saying so, and pointing out its failings, particularly when those failing originate from the other end of the ideological spectrum.

But what's worse than pompous, wrong-headed, so-called "journalists" who may be offensive, stupid, wrong, different, harmful, or even, uncomfortably correct?

Let us suggest what's worse: those who would silence them.

"The only security of all is in a free press," said Thomas Jefferson. "The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."

Yet attempts to suppress, intimidate, tar and otherwise diminish the voice of journalists are ever-present.

The state FPPC has put to rest, for now, its ill-advised scheme to require bloggers to disclose payments they receive from political campaigns. But the political policing agency's chair says the idea isn't dead. What could be wrong with forcing bloggers to fess up if they are paid by political interests to write what they write?

Consider that the California government, in so regulating a free press, would be about half a goose-step from what the British already are doing.

"Six members of an 11-member political committee deign to dictate who should or shouldn't run a media company," says a Wall Street Journal's editorial today. "The language in that phrase 'not a fit person' is clearly intended to influence regulators who must meet a 'fit and proper' standard in deciding who can own a British broadcaster. Mr. Murdoch is CEO of News Corp., which owns this newspaper as well as 39% of BSkyB, the British broadcaster. The regulator is currently reviewing BSkyB's license. It's hard to imagine a clearer case of politically pressuring a regulator to push out an unpopular owner."

Reminiscent of presidential attacks on Fox News, isn't it. Oh wait. The same Murdoch is involved there. Coincidence, no doubt.

But it's not the target that makes this so trouble. It's the target shooters.

When government assumes the power to decide who is "fit" to write news, which in large part is about government and its workings, then we're approaching dangerous territory.

Our founding fathers knew the value of a free, unfettered press. King George's oppressive rule was a lesson well-learned. Therefore, "Congress shall make no law Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."

Did we mention that the inclination to abridge is never far from the surface? It took just a tad more than a decade after enshrining free press protections for a president and Congress to adopt as egregious an infringement imaginable with the Alien and Sedition Acts. King George would have been proud.

It's always awkward to rely on anyone French for guidance on such matters, considering what a shambles the French have made of God-given rights over the centuries. But one guy got it right (at least we think he said it):

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. "

That's a bit different in approach to government's inclination to defend your right to say it, as long as government agrees with it, and with your "fitness."

Did we mention that we're only a step or two from tyranny? Remember that champion of first amendment rights Thomas Jefferson, who famously said: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Some time later, the same Jefferson said this: "nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." And this:

"The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."

And this:

"The abuses of the freedom of the press here have been carried to a length never before known or borne by any civilized nation."

"This is a dangerous state of things, and the press ought to be restored to its credibility if possible. The restraints provided by the laws of the States are sufficient for this, if applied. And I have, therefore, long thought that a few prosecutions of the most prominent offenders would have a wholesome effect in restoring the integrity of the presses. Not a general prosecution, for that would look like persecution; but a selected one."

Just a few prosecutions to put the press in its place. Not too many.

That might "look like persecution..."

We are never more than a short goose-step from tyranny. Even the best of us.

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{democracy:1604}

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